Source: 4thletter.com

5. Battlefields

(Dynamite Entertainment)

I talked about War Stories earlier, but of the Ennis war anthologies, I prefer this one.

Published through Dynamite, this book was done in three-issue mini-arcs, as opposed to War Stories’ prestige one-shot format. Once again, Battlefields touches on hidden true stories of war, and drags them to the forefront. A million people have written stories about people, real and fictional, who storm the beaches on D-Day, but Ennis prefers to dig for more interesting untold tales.

The first three Battlefields miniseries exemplify this. Night Witches tells the tale of the eponymous Russian pilot squadron. These female pilots were given the worst planes in the fleet, planes that were so loud the Germans would gun them down from miles away. So what did they do? They shut their engines off and glided over encampments like badasses. Dear Billy talks about the horrible aftereffects of war and shows the Pacific Front, which most war stories shy away from.

And my favorite of the three, Tankies, discusses the British tank regiments. If you’ve never read about tanks, they are the scariest things of all time to fight, and almost as scary to be inside.